


why can't you see me

by PlacentaMilk



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, First Meetings, Obsession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24318478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlacentaMilk/pseuds/PlacentaMilk
Summary: He is the shadow of the Commonwealth, whether Glory agrees with him or not.She sees him, though.
Relationships: Deacon/Female Sole Survivor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	why can't you see me

**Author's Note:**

> listen maccready is my main bitch, I love him to death and I've never even looked at anybody else but I was reading this fanfic and the way they wrote Deacon and the sole survivor interacting made me fall in love so I wrote this a little while ago with my own character.

Listen, Glory could rag on his "in the shadows" bullshit all she wanted to, but the truth was, no one saw him if he didn't want to be seen.

He's good at what he does. One of the best, he might - _will_ \- say. You don't get his level of skill without some serious dedication and time spent into perfecting the craft, it's just how it goes. It's why his job is intel. He _is_ the shadow of the Commonwealth, whether Glory agrees with him or not.

She sees him, though.

Of course he's known about her from the moment she woke up. Before that, actually. Intel is his job, and he keeps a close eye on Kellogg for as long as he can until the mercenary disappears off the map of the Earth. When a small team of two, clearly out-of-their-league, eggheads wearing hazmat suits are dispatched into Vault 111 with Kellogg striding behind them, Deacon follows. Kellogg is good, and ruthless at his job, but he never notices Deacon standing on the platform behind them with a stealth boy equipped.

It'd be too hard getting into the vault without alerting them, he reasons as if he's not the craziest motherfucker on the planet for descending into the vault not even three feet from Kellogg. And if the institute weren't so good at hiding from the common eye, maybe he would've just waited outside to see what they come out with, but here he is.

The eggheads know exactly what they want and where to find it, it seems. No pitstops, no trying to find their way around, the girl leads their way down the right corridor. It's a pretty straightforward shot, and once they get to the cold back rooms, she orders the other hazmat to get to work on the terminal.

Deacon sees everything. It's grim to watch, and when the scientists walk out with the baby in their hands, he lets them go by. Ten, fifteen, twenty seconds is what he counts and he finally hears the platform groaning as it rises to the surface of the Earth again.

He walks to the pods, to the one across from Nate. Kellogg had stopped here, grinned at the person inside, and said "At least we still have the backup."

She's asleep already, frost starting to crack along the window as the cryo-pod kicks into gear again.

Deacon becomes obsessed.

"You researching your girl again?" Glory teases one night, plopping down next to the bald man with a heavy sigh, her boots thudding against the coffee table when she stretches her legs out and rests her feet on the wood.

"What girl?"

"Don't front, Tom and I think it's cute if not a little creepy."

"I'm not-" he sighs, a headache forming in his temples. He's been getting more of those lately. Rainy season is approaching or something. "I'm researching Kellogg."

"Sure," she shrugs, finally unscrewing the cap to the bottle of whiskey in her hands. At this point in time the Railroad is good, and she's not the only heavy. She gets a night off.

Glory spends her night off easily snatching the journal out of Deacon's hands. "Then what are these headlines? 'Lawyer Nora Reed pulls out compelling evidence against the-' hey!" Gloria exclaims when he snatches it out of her hands.

"Don't you know it's rude to go snooping through people's stuff?"

"Oh," she gives a hearty laugh, "don't even get me started, you sneak. So, tell me about her. She's pre-war," with this, Glory starts counting off the facts with her fingers, "she used to be a lawyer, her last name is Reed, anndd...?"

"And nothing."

The look Gloria gives him is scathing. "You're telling me that's it? That's all you've found on her? _You_?"

No, of course it wasn't. He knew as much as he could find. He knew her husband, Nate, served in the 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry Regiment during the Sino-American war. Nora earned her law degree in Suffolk County School of Law, and was pretty damn good at what she did until she got pregnant with their baby and decided to take a break from justice. Codsworth, their robot butler, still lived in Sanctuary at their home. A couple of times, Deacon has just sat and watched the robot try to clean the wrecked house.

It's sad.

He knows a little bit about her family, mainly background checks still sitting in the old military files from when she got married to Nate. What wasn't wiped or corrupted didn't hold much information, but news articles still floated around if you were lucky enough to find them.

He knows the minute she's let out of the pod, and keeps tabs on her while trying to get the Railroad back on it's feet. From what he hears, she's a fucking terror on the Commonwealth raiders.

_"Nah, you know the remaining Minutemen? Apparently they were held up in Concord by raiders, trapped and unable to get out. I was told they were saved by a vault-dweller."_

_"A vault-dweller? Really?"_

_"Blue suit, pip-boy, the whole works. She smashed the leaders face in with her own hands and when a deathclaw crawled out of the old sewer system she lit that motherfucker up with a minigun."_

_"You're shitting me."_

It wasn't entirely true. Deacon was there, because of course he would be, and yes she _did_ bash the raiders face in with her fists. The deathclaw he helped out a bit with though. He couldn't have her dying as soon as she stepped out of the vault, that wouldn't do at all, and he wasn't leaving her life in the hands of the Commonwealth's last Minutemen Preston Garvey. 

When he's free, he'll dress as a drifter or a guard and blend as best as he can into the noise just to watch her. She's skinny. Skinnier than she was before getting out of the vault. Two months out of the pod and she has more scars than he can count so far away. Her gaze is ice and her stance is firm, she looks nothing like the woman she used to. He'd almost think she was a completely different person, if he didn't hear the way she uses that silver tongue of hers.

She was a good lawyer for a reason.

Not two months out of the vault and she's already tracked down where Kellogg is hiding, something that took Deacon twice the time of that when he first learned about the Railroads new enemy. It was rocky at first when she didn't know where to go, didn't know who to speak to, but he watched as she found out about a lead and _latched onto it_. It was an avalanche from there. Rescue Nick Valentine, find out where Kellogg had been living, and find out where Kellogg is now _staying_.

Deacon didn't even know Kellogg was back in the Commonwealth, which is saying something about her skills. Maybe he's rusty, or maybe women from back then were just a whole different breed.

He isn't there when she kills the bastard, but word quickly spreads around the Railroad. Then the Railroad gets hit hard, and he's scrambling to find the remaining members a new home. Desdemona might have a temporary place or two but he has millions of secret hiding places all across the Commonwealth, and _honestly, Desdemona, no one touches the church because of the Super Mutants near by._ He loses sight of her for awhile, puts her on the back burner while they get set up in a new place. Vague whispers of the Glowing Sea float around, and suddenly Mayor Hancock is gone from Goodneighbor.

She shows up on their doorstep one month after they've had to relocate, and he comes to find out it's because Doctor Amari is a saint. Nora doesn't put up with any of Desdemona's shit. "I killed a courser and pulled this chip out of its skull. I need it decoded, can you help me or _not_?"

Deacon's been around the block enough times with Des to gain her full and complete trust. The older woman trusts that he knows who's who and which basket to put their caps in, and as if he wasn't going to vouch for Nora anyway. Glory snickers when he explains that, _yes_ , Des, we should be nice to the courser-killing machine.

Tom is going to riot when he sees her, and Deacon will bet everything he owns in his current lifetime that Glory and Tom are going to rip him apart tonight.

Desdemona asks the big question. "Let me ask you something. Would you risk your life for a fellow synth?"

Nora pauses for a moment, her eyes flicking over the small gaggle of people in front of her, pausing over Deacon's frame before settling back on the boss. The dog by her side tilts his head as if he's watching them the same. Trippy. "I risk my life for people everyday." She eventually settles on. The Minutemen. Right, of course.

Des is happy with the answer either way, and Deacon spares himself the commentary of Nora meeting Tinker Tom. If he's truly curious, he'll just go through Tom's audio logs, since the idiot records nearly everything.

Somehow he convinces her to run a job with him.

"You've been the one watching me, huh?" She asks as they walk on the highway a little bit after dusk. She'd been nearly dead silent since they started their trek, but he could tell that she was watching him the entire time, her eyes glued to the back of his skull.

"Watching you?"

He can see dead ghouls from here, they'll be meeting [REDACTED] soon enough. He wishes it were sooner, but she keeps her speed the same no matter if he speeds up or not. She makes sure she's always behind him, rarely to the side and never at the front. She's smart. She saw him. "Don't play dumb, you're too smart for that."

With this, he finally stops walking, like she was apparently waiting for him to. He expects her to be holding her gun or something, at least a bit cautious, but when he turns to face her she's completely empty handed. "Is that a compliment? Thank you," he purrs.

"Deflecting. You're good at what you do, and maybe if I were a regular drifter I wouldn't have noticed that you seem to magically turn up wherever I am." Her hands are empty but her arms are crossed, and in saying this she uncrosses them to hold up a hand, putting down a finger for every name she lists off. "Concord. Diamond City. Bunker Hill. Goodneighbor. I'm pretty sure you've pretended to be a settler in my own settlement once."

"Why would I do that, sunshine?"

"You said it yourself, your job is intel."

Fuck.

She smiles like she's caught him, and if he wasn't already caught he might've fallen for it. "You didn't agree to do this mission because you want to join the Railroad, did you?" he asks, feeling out of his league. He's in deep water here and apparently he's forgotten how to swim... Not that he particularly minds drowning so long as she's the one holding his floaties out of reach.

"No. I don't care about the Railroad. You can free as many synths as you want, I have my hands full with the entirety of the Commonwealth. I just wanted to make sure you knew that I've been watching you too."

If she had been, he didn't notice. She's probably bluffing but it's extremely hard to gauge. "Threats aren't taken lightly with the Railroad, princess," he throws off-handedly. Easy.

"Good. I'm not meant to be taken lightly, sweetheart."

They stare each other down for a moment before her eyes flick to the right, past his shoulder and down the road. "What are you looking at? Lead."

**Author's Note:**

> ok so I genuinely couldn't remember that one dude's name so I just put redacted hope u don't hate me


End file.
